BookReview: Kafka on the Shore

by admin

Talking cats, raining fish, death, trapped souls, parallel universes, a confused fifteen-year-old, and of course a good smattering of sex. Among other (sometimes heart-breaking) oddities. With Kafka on the Shore, Japanese novelist and fabulist Haruki Murakami continues his metaphysical exploration of the odd underside of human and not-so human experience, getting at the raw truth that lies obscured by everyday reality. The writing seems less assured than in the masterful Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which might be blamed on the translator: Philip Gabriel replacing Jay Rubin. The prose is a bit clunky (possibly Murakami, possibly Gabriel), but the narrative transcends those problems, much as his characters, willing and not, transcend physics.